A few memories and recent events have sparked these thoughts.
I remember a year or so ago I saw an away message on AIM from a friend of mine. The message read, "I would trade experience for innocence any day." As a modern thinker (not quite a systematized post-modern thinker), my first reaction was to message this person while they were away and tell them that I would never do such a thing.
Fast forward to today, I still would never exchange experience or wisdom for innocence. Wait, rewind. This phrase is much too simple--"experience" and "innocence" need to be defined. I don't really feel up to gathering these definitions so I suppose that I will just carry on and try to say what I was initially going to say anyways. Experience is a wonderful thing. This stuff that we call experience, acquired from all of life's situations, is able to make us more well-rounded individuals, stronger and smart individuals.
However, I may be seeing my old friend's point here...
Experience can also lead an individual to become a more bitter person, a more jaded person. I suppose that the difference between these two ideas of experience is found in our day-to-day attitudes and the intent involved in acquiring experience. Do we acquire certain experiences due to the dissonance or residual angst from childhood? Or do we acquire certain experiences in order to do whatever else?
I don't know either. And what is this business about innocence? Innocent in the eyes of whom? Innocent in regards to purity or innocent in regards to naivety or innocent in regards to some act of atonement or repentance?
I don't know either.
Ok, back to what I have been trying to say since the beginning and what I had set out to write about since the beginning.
-Sometimes I feel that I am too callous to what comes at me--religion, spirituality, academia, relationships, and on and on. What happened to my sense of wonder? What happened to my sense of innocence? What happened to my sense of wide eyed amazement? What happened to my child-like nature? What happened to my mysticism?
I always find myself going back and moderating--"It's okay to be very progressive...however...always remember where you came from," I have to tell myself.
:) Some wonder came back through the medium of Sigur Ros today.
Comments (1)